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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

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Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#161

Post by 908B64B197 »

bko wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I don't know who you're referring to as 'we' but in the US, carbon emissions have actually peaked in the early 2000s and decreased in an absolute sense since then, despite growing population and industrialization. We're currently at 1986 emission levels. US has 15% of global emissions, while China has 28% and is growing in both per person and absolute. I don't think you're wrong to be cynical about tackling this prob…

> while China has 28% and is growing in both per person and absolute.

I'm personally completely in favor of import tariffs on goods manufactured abroad with dirty energy and immigration quotas on nationals from countries that have decided not to control their emissions.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#162

Post by quickthrower2 »

bko wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I don't know who you're referring to as 'we' but in the US, carbon emissions have actually peaked in the early 2000s and decreased in an absolute sense since then, despite growing population and industrialization. We're currently at 1986 emission levels. US has 15% of global emissions, while China has 28% and is growing in both per person and absolute. I don't think you're wrong to be cynical about tackling this prob…

Those stats are not fair because China is the world's factory. If China decides to stop exporting manufactured products to reduce it's emissions, the US would need to manufacture itself, increasing it's emissions.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#163

Post by thenightcrawler »

bko wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I don't know who you're referring to as 'we' but in the US, carbon emissions have actually peaked in the early 2000s and decreased in an absolute sense since then, despite growing population and industrialization. We're currently at 1986 emission levels. US has 15% of global emissions, while China has 28% and is growing in both per person and absolute. I don't think you're wrong to be cynical about tackling this prob…

To be fair You could say 2020 was due to lack of car emmissions?

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#164

Post by zepto »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #74
noasaservice wrote: post #27

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

> I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. > So what do I do? know what we're doing is what we can Everything you do is inconsequential in the face of living in a detached single family home on a quarter acre lot. That very simple fact has exponential knock on effects requiring so much more mass to move so much further and hence consuming so much more energy, that everythi…

> if people live in insufficiently dense manners

Dense living is associated with poorer mental health and a variety of diseases, and that not taking into account people with autism, introversion etc, some of whom find urban density neurologically intolerable.

Humans didn’t evolve to live densely.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#165

Post by wrs »

dillon wrote: post #151
wrs wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is sometimes pointed to as a “climate sanctuary”. A couple of weeks ago it was 108° here in Seattle. Let me repeat that: a hundred and eight degrees. In Seattle. Our reaction as a city: air conditioning installation is booked out for months.

To be fair, Seattle's electric grid has been on all sustainable energy for a while now. Seattle is one of the greenest city in the U.S. On top of that, any person living in King County is able to pay a little bit extra to opt into 100% sustainable energy. The reaction from Seattle isn't terribly illogical. EDIT: Should mention the city is NOT carbon neutral by any means. We still have buses running on gas.

True, we are fortunate we can avoid hard choices on power source up here (lots of hydro). But what I meant to highlight was that our focus tends to be on solving our local short-term climate problems, just like everybody else.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#166

Post by eointierney »

noasaservice wrote: post #27

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

Hope is what we share when we don't know what to do because someone else might just have the solution. Never give up hope :)

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#167

Post by zepto »

shawnz wrote: post #63
spoonjim wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could live in 200 square feet. You could bathe with one bucket of room temperature water. You could use no air conditioning whatsoever. You could eat only vegetarian food. Etc etc. You won’t, (and I won’t either) but if it comes down to human survival, forces will find a way to make you do it.

This comment has gone grey but I think it is an important point. Our basic expectancies for what makes a comfortable life are higher than ever. Is that an ethical problem or just a result of more/better technology? I'm not really sure.

> Our basic expectancies for what makes a comfortable life are higher than ever.

Not with regard to density, which has been going up, not down.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#168

Post by scoofy »

bko wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I don't know who you're referring to as 'we' but in the US, carbon emissions have actually peaked in the early 2000s and decreased in an absolute sense since then, despite growing population and industrialization. We're currently at 1986 emission levels. US has 15% of global emissions, while China has 28% and is growing in both per person and absolute. I don't think you're wrong to be cynical about tackling this prob…

We need to essentially be net negative. Note that 3/4th of the area under that graph... is literally not visible because it doesn't start from zero.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#169

Post by throwamon »

gruez wrote: post #118
MyKneeGrows wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades. 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals. And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering. So take…

>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades Source? > So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there. Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's…

> if all 8 billion people follow your example that would lead to a massive increase in pollution

Most people don't follow GP's example because they can't, not because "they're getting the right message". And you bet that as soon as they can, they will. Why? Because most people don't care about the "message", whatever you believe it is. The ones who actually do something about it are the ones who would regardless of any mass-targeted "message". Going one step further, I'd say that it would be better if everyone realized that they can't do anything on their own because that might actually get people to work together, and that's the very reason why the common message is that "everyone should do their part": because that's how you keep people from working together.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#170

Post by gruez »

lsllc wrote: post #143
gruez wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades Source? > So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there. Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's…

https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060... https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h... https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...

>https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060...

The headline does not seem to be supported by the article, which mainly consists of various pollution figures for the US military but lacks comparison to other entities. The closest it gets to that is saying the US military produces "more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined". Overall it makes a convincing case that the US military is a large polluter, but not that it's "World’s Biggest Polluter".

>https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...

It's a blog for a coop chain. A skim of the article reveals the same problem as the previous: lots of facts and figures about how much the US military pollutes, but not many comparisons required to make the claim that they're the largest.

>https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h...

>https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...

Both seem to focus on the US military producing more co2 than many countries. I'm not sure how this is supposed to support the claim that they're the biggest polluter. The bay area probably produces more co2 than "many countries" (eg. Liechtenstein and Tonga), but that doesn't mean they're the biggest polluter in the world.

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